Poetry, which requires formal speech, takes place in a different arena than friendship, which requires informal speech. For poets who are friends, this is not necessarily a contradiction. But for a friendship in poetry, certain difficulties emerge. The body of the friendship cannot live long outside an informal mode of speech, but the purpose of it, the poetry itself, cannot survive outside a formal one. The more the friendship succeeds in producing viable poetry, the less that poetry—the very catalyst and meaning of the friendship—truly belongs to its participants or can even be fully comprehended by them.
I’ve heard that Hachette Book Group is debating putting one in its trade book contracts, though the publisher wouldn’t confirm it. These clauses release a company from the obligation to publish a book if, in the words of Penguin Random House, “past or future conduct of the author inconsistent with the author’s reputation at the time this agreement is executed comes to light and results in sustained, widespread public condemnation of the author that materially diminishes the sales potential of the work.”
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This past year, regular contributors to Condé Nast magazines started spotting a new paragraph in their yearly contracts. It’s a doozy. If, in the company’s “sole judgment,” the clause states, the writer “becomes the subject of public disrepute, contempt, complaints or scandals,” Condé Nast can terminate the agreement. In other words, a writer need not have done anything wrong; she need only become scandalous. In the age of the Twitter mob, that could mean simply writing or saying something that offends some group of strident tweeters.
Agents hate morality clauses because terms like “public condemnation” are vague and open to abuse, especially if a publisher is looking for an excuse to back out of its contractual obligations. When I asked writers about morality clauses, on the other hand, most of them had no idea what I was talking about. You’d be surprised at how many don’t read the small print.
Darkness in fashion is seldom bland. Even where it fails, its objective is to make its mark, whether one of elegance or uniformity, modesty or dangerous seduction. Like red wine rather than white, it can suggest sophistication, even opulence; like the darks of professional makeup—the art of smoky defining shadows and dark lipstick—it can obscure what we find less appealing and hint at mysterious qualities that a scrubbed-clean face couldn’t hope to inspire. In China and Japan, for example, teeth were once lacquered black to protect the enamel, but also because it was considered beautiful, and the practice goes on today among some minorities in Southeast Asia. To paint black what should be white creates a shock that is the essence of dark fashion.
Fashion is related to the desire for conformity. Even the least sartorially concerned among us might feel uncomfortable wearing bright colors at a funeral unless asked to do so, say, or be reluctant to turn up at a wedding dressed top to toe in black or, indeed, white. To ignore the unspoken rules of dress is to draw attention to oneself and to seem to make a critical statement about the status quo, as if one knows better. This is fashion in its widest sense. We may not think we give a damn about what we wear, but still we can find ourselves caring very much when even the smallest aspect of dress feels curiously unlike ourselves, as for a conservative dresser in a tie that is brighter or fractionally wider than his custom. It may be important to a person that their clothes do not look cheap—or, to another, too new.
Patt Morrison likes the small stuff. "I am a great lover of what is erroneously called ephemera, our paper trail in this world," the longtime journalist says on a recent morning at a Cypress Park Starbucks. She likes small objects, postcards and notes on napkins; all things that could be easily discarded. Yet there’s a story in every scrap.
A few years ago, Morrison began to notice postcards with images from long-gone newspapers. During that time, she saw the troubles in print media industry, including the ongoing challenges of newspapers large and small. "We are in the business of telling other people's stories," says Morrison, an L.A. Times columnist. Journalists are the conduits of the world's stories, the writers of the first draft of history. But she wondered: Who would tell the stories of journalists?
Off the shore of a remote island, three sisters navigate the currents of grief after losing their father—assumed dead after disappearing at sea. The unfolding narrative that follows in Sophie Mackintosh’s debut novel, The Water Cure, is both eerie and stunning, driven mostly by poetic devices in the language and dramatic action. Told in elliptical vignettes, the scenes culminate in a coming-of-age story that delves into the psychology of womanhood. Raised to believe that the “mainland” is filled with men who will harm them, the three sister protagonists—Sky, Lia, and Grace—wade through the possibility and curiosity of this supposed truth.
In the language of handkerchiefs // there’s really nothing // I don’t want
I’m glad to be paid in gold // when the devil beats his // you know what